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The booster reached more than mach 3.7 before landing on the launch pad at just 4.4 miles per hour. The capsule, in which any passengers to space would be placed, landed separately by parachute.

The video, shot on 23 November 2015, was marked on Twitter by Bezos, Amazon's PR team and Blue Origin.

Other companies including SpaceX are attempting similar feats, with Elon Musk's firm still aiming at landing its Falcon 9 rocket on a water-borne platform after sending a supply ship to the International Space Station. Several space craft have demonstrated reusable elements in the past -- most notably Nasa's Space Shuttle, retired in 2011. SpaceX were able to land several versions of its Grasshopper prototype rocket after launch, though that craft only flew to just over 700m in altitude. Its development Falcon 9 eventually made it to 1,000m and back.

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Several other reusable rocket-based systems have completed similar sub-orbital tests, though none has made it to orbit and safely back to Earth under its own power. As such it would appear this test, while significant, is a more concretely a "first" for BlueOrigins -- and a relatively subtle first for spaceflight as a whole.

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"Rockets have always been expendable. Not anymore. Now safely tucked away at our launch site in West Texas is the rarest of beasts, a used rocket. "This flight validates our vehicle architecture and design. Our unique ring fin shifted the centre of pressure aft to help control reentry and descent; eight large drag brakes deployed and reduced the vehicle’s terminal speed to 387 mph; hydraulically actuated fins steered the vehicle through 119-mph high-altitude crosswinds to a location precisely aligned with and 5,000 feet above the landing pad; then the highly-throttleable BE-3 engine re-ignited to slow the booster as the landing gear deployed and the vehicle descended the last 100 feet at 4.4 mph to touchdown on the pad."

On Twitter SpaceX's Musk congratulated Bezos, but pointed out (right) that achieving reusable rockets for orbit was orders of magnitude more difficult than doing so for sub-orbital flight -- largely because of the relative speeds involved.